I was only two years old in 2003, but looking back, it is hard to shake the feeling that we are back there again, only this time the whole thing is overtly meaner, faster and somehow even less ashamed. Militarism, body panic and reactionary politics are back, but now they are moving through a culture with fewer limits and a greater appetite for content and spectacle.
The Bush era sold needless violence through moral certainty and patriotic theatre. The Trump era is doing something similar, but in a more brazen form. The current U.S. and Israeli war against Iran has already spiraled into a broader regional crisis, pulling more countries into the conflict and opening the door to wider destruction. Trump is now publicly berating NATO allies for not backing the war more aggressively. The old script is familiar — violence is framed as leadership, and restraint as weakness.
While political attention ricochets from one escalation to the next, other suffering is brushed aside or folded into the background. In Gaza, Israel closed all borders again after the strikes on Iran, halting humanitarian aid and medical evacuations, returning famine to a population already pushed to the brink.
In Cuba, a nationwide grid collapse has left millions without power amid a U.S. oil blockade that has cut off fuel and pushed the power grid toward failure. In a country already strained by sanctions, fuel shortages and limited outside support, the blackout has made preserving food and caring for basic needs far more difficult.
In Venezuela, amid longstanding crises, Trump’s recent political moves have intensified instability by capturing Maduro and openly positioning the U.S. to run the country during a supposed transition, turning Venezuela into yet another site of brazen U.S. intervention and oil politics. The speed and volatility of reactionary politics and the ease with which governments now move from one escalation to the next help push long-term suffering out of view.
The same atmosphere is visible in pop culture. If you have not seen photos or videos from recent red carpets, do not go looking for them. The current body ideal being normalized in celebrity culture is not glamorous, it is alarming. Hollywood and influencer beauty standards have shifted toward dramatically hollowed cheekbones, visible collarbones and extremely thin arms, with red carpets increasingly reflecting a more hauntingly skeletal look. The broader fashion industry has also been moving backwards toward ultra-thinness after years of hard-won pressure for body diversity.
This should be viewed not only as an aesthetic swing, but also as a political one. A culture that rewards women for appearing frail, underfed and easily controlled is not moving in a liberatory direction. You cannot meaningfully fight misogyny while romanticizing weakness as femininity. You cannot confront war, state violence and reactionary politics while celebrating bodies that look depleted. This does not mean strength has to look one way, and it does not mean that every woman owes the world some performance of toughness, but there is nothing progressive about a beauty ideal built on shrinking.
Even some growing trends marketed as wellness can slide into that same logic. Pilates is great, movement is great and caring about your health is great. But when the dominant ideal becomes being as small, delicate and non-threatening as possible, wellness starts to look a lot like puritanism in a prettier outfit.
Women do not need to disappear to be beautiful. Eat enough, lift weights and build strength. Be healthy enough to think clearly, act forcefully and resist the systems that benefit from your weakness. Refuse the fantasy that becoming smaller is the same thing as becoming better.
This is why it feels like we are in 2003 again. History is not repeating itself identically, and not every trend from the early 2000s has returned. But many of the ugliest instincts of that era are back all at once — reckless war, public cruelty, dangerous body standards and a political culture that keeps lowering the bar for what people are expected to accept. The main difference is now everything is more immediate, more algorithmic and more relentless.
We do not need a 2003 revival. We need to stop accepting what should still shock us.
